Lexi’s story

I just didn’t want to be here anymore. My family told me I was being dramatic, however I made subsequent attempts and needed to be hospitalised.

I distinctly remember the first time I called Samaritans, after seeing their posters at the railway stations. I was about 13 or 14 and just felt like I was meeting a brick wall with everyone I spoke to about my self-harm and suicide attempts. Samaritans were the first people who ever took me seriously, and who actually recognised that there was something wrong. I wasn't treated like a child or made to feel that I was being dramatic. My feelings were validated. From there, I felt like I could advocate for myself at a time when it would have been easy to just give up and think, ‘I keep asking for help and nobody is giving it to me.’

I did go through a period where I didn't call Samaritans, but when I was diagnosed with a progressive genetic issue, I reached out again. I got tired of what I would call toxic positivity; people saying to me that it wasn’t the end of the world, and it wasn’t about what I couldn’t do, it was about what I could do. Sometimes you need someone to let you just acknowledge that things are a bit crap.

I really do believe I wouldn't be here today without Samaritans. There were multiple times where I felt like I was going to self-harm, or I was going to take my own life, and Samaritans would talk me down. I have a lot to thank them for.

Volunteering fits in really well with my day-to-day life. There are set shifts on the rota and I just select the one I can do that week, so there’s great flexibility. It's about an hour on the bus to get to the branch, but a lot of the other Samaritans will offer me a lift – they’re really good like that.

I was really impressed with the training. The first call I took on probation – so completely on my own without a mentor – was really challenging. It touched on personal trauma I had experienced, so I was grateful that the training was so thorough and enabled me to cope.

I have really learnt to listen but also to have empathy. I think everyone likes to think of themselves as empathetic, which they see as giving people advice or just telling them to cheer up and it will be fine. But that’s not empathy. One of my trainers said to me that sympathy is looking at someone at the bottom of a well and saying ‘Oh, that looks quite bad’ but empathy is getting in the well and sitting with that person and saying, ‘Oh, it is really bad in here.’

At Samaritans we’re trained to ask the right questions at the right time, that make people realise, ‘I knew how to figure this out all along.’ That’s one of my favourite parts of being a volunteer.

One of the first real calls I listened to my mentor take was someone thanking Samaritans for saving their life. I knew then that however hard things got, this was something I wanted to keep doing and I could make a real difference. It’s always a good feeling when you start a call and someone is really distressed but you come to the end of the call and they sound much calmer, more positive, sometimes even laughing and making jokes.

I think volunteering has given me a better work ethic. I'm still quite early on in my career, training as a counsellor, so it's hard to see at this stage that I'm making an actual difference. But with Samaritans, I can see the difference in the here and now. It's made me realise I will get to that point with my counselling, but it will take time. It has given me that work ethic and motivation to keep going.

My volunteering has also felt like self-improvement. Before Samaritans, I felt I was stable in my mental health but now I feel like it has improved it from just the baseline.

I would absolutely encourage others to consider volunteering for Samaritans. The support really is second to none. Every shift leader I've ever worked with has told that whatever time of day or night it is, they are always there for me, and I am never to suffer in silence.

Even when you've had a tough shift, you go home and think to yourself, I’ve done something really, really good today.